


straight from the knife's sharp edge

by seroquel (smallredboy)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coping, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hospitalization, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Miriam Lass-centric, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25000003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/seroquel
Summary: Miriam Lass struggles after shooting Chilton.
Relationships: Dr. Frederick Chilton & Miriam Lass, Jack Crawford & Miriam Lass, Miriam Lass & Original Female Character
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020, Gen Prompt Bingo Round 18, Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11, Prompt Table Challenge: Clouds and Shadows





	straight from the knife's sharp edge

**Author's Note:**

> **fffc's 100th special:** police, despair, pain  
>  **clouds and shadows @ creativechallenges:** kidnapping  
>  **h/c bingo:** captivity  
>  **gen prompt bingo:** hurt / comfort  
> also for **fffc's 14th froday madness (minor characters)**.
> 
> i love miriam, and i went off the rails a little with this fic. while i haven't experienced miriam's range of... _things_ , part of it is based on my own experience with paranoia and ptsd.
> 
> enjoy!

When she comes back to herself, Miriam is in a hospital bed, all sorts of fluids hooked up to her. 

Her head hurts, and she remembers the taste of blood in her mouth, the feeling of fear and panic rising up her throat as she stared at Dr. Frederick Chilton. Just hearing his voice sent her reeling, made her froth at the mouth like a wild animal. She doesn't know him — she knows he's the head of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. She doesn't remember ever interviewing him. 

She doesn't remember a lot of things.

"Miriam," Jack says. "You're awake."

"Wuh… what happened?" she asks, her throat impossibly dry.

"You shot Dr. Chilton," he says. "And then you… you were a _mess_. You had a panic attack and were screaming and they had to sedate you."

She blinks, bites the inside of her cheek. "How is he?"

"Alive."

She doesn't know if that disappoints her.

"Is he really it? Is he… is he the real deal?" She lets out a shuddering breath and straightens up, sees a cup of water in the nightstand next to her hospital bed. She sighs and drinks it all in one long sip.

"I… I don't know," Jack admits. "I don't think so. He… he might have been framed, just like Will was. He fits the profile in all aspects, except the fact that all his colleagues have commented on his _terrible_ surgery skills."

"Could have been a cover-up," she replies.

"Just like how much he… flounders around, trying to manipulate people without any real success." He shakes his head. "It doesn't make sense, though, when you consider Abel Gideon. Why would the Chesapeake Ripper convince one of his inmates that he was what he is?"

"Why does the Ripper do anything of what he does?" she shoots back. Her prosthetic arm shines from the sunlight that filters on those shitty, cheap curtains.

He crumbles a little at the question. "I don't know, Miriam," he replies. "All I know is that you found him. You found him out somehow and we need… we need to help you remember who it was that you found out."

"I was just looking for information," she replies. She closes her eyes so the fluorescent lights from the hospital don't awaken anything inside her. She can remember the flashing, flashing lights, that silhouette — she's unsure if it ever did fit Dr. Chilton's own. "I don't know… I don't know what I found from that."

Jack swallows around the lump in his throat. "I'll get you a different therapist. You had a session with Dr. Lecter, but Will Graham's accusations toward him make me rather uncomfortable on sending you back to him."

She tries to think of Dr. Lecter's silhouette, if it was similar to the one she saw. She can't recall. His voice didn't sound like the Ripper's. The Ripper's didn't have that accent to it, thickly European. 

"Do you think he may be right?"

"I think he may be right. But we don't have proof… we don't have proof except Will Graham's suspicions, which tend to be right. So I'm taking all precautions I can."

"Of course," she says. "Is… apart from alive, how is Dr. Chilton? His condition?"

He takes several seconds to answer, fiddles with his hands. "If you had gone even a few millimeters upward, he would be dead. The bullet went through his jaw and past his optic nerve, barely missing his brain. He's lost sight in one eye."

She draws in a breath. "Okay. Is he… awake?"

"No," he replies. "He's in a medically induced coma, to deal with the worst of it. He should wake up in a few weeks."

"Okay." She blinks, looks at her hands. "I assume I'll have a trial."

"For attempted manslaughter, yes," he says. "I'm unsure what Chilton's position will be on the matter, but any judge in good conscience wouldn't be able to send you to jail for this. You… you were terrified, Miriam. Multiple people saw it. They saw how you slipped off our grip after you shot him. You could claim unconsciousness, and it'd be correct."

"Just like Will Graham did," she says, a soft humorless laugh leaving her lips. "Let's hope this time I'm ruled innocent as well."

Jack leans in to squeeze her shoulder. "I will make sure you will be, Miriam."

* * *

Miriam only remembers bits and pieces of her trial.

She remembers the judge, staring her and her lawyer down, judging them for every action, every word uttered. Chilton, _defending_ her — that was a surprise. He was too early into his recovery to hide the worst of it, as he would do later on, but he defends her.

"She thought I was the man that held her captive for two years — the man who took two years of her life away from her." He sucked in an airy breath. "I cannot blame her for shooting me, when she heard the voice she had been made to think was of her captor. She was panicked — she _is_ traumatized and hurt and missing an arm, for Christ's sake, and you plan to just throw her into prison? If she had shot Hannibal Lecter, you would have hailed her as a hero, albeit a messed up one. She shot the Chesapeake Ripper. She didn't shoot _me_ , Frederick Chilton."

She's shaking so bad after the session is over that she feels like she could break down in tears. As soon as they're out of sorts and out of sight, she hugs Chilton, hard, like he will disappear if she doesn't apply this amount of pressure.

"Thank you," she says. "Thank you, Chilton. I — I am so glad you understand what… what happened. I am sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Hey," Chilton says, pulling her away softly. "It's okay, Miriam. I'm not going to let justice do you dirty just because I was the quote unquote victim. I know you didn't mean to shoot _me_."

She nods. Her eyes fill with tears. "I swore it was you," she says. "I swore it was you, Chilton. I don't know what — I don't know what he _did_ to make me think that but… it was you. He sounded like you."

"Maybe he mimicked my voice, when he talked to you," he says. "No way his accent's _that_ thick without keeping it up on purpose."

She lets out an airy laugh that sounds filled with tears. "Yeah… yeah. I suppose so." She swallows, fiddles with her jacket. "So Will Graham went and followed him, huh?"

"Yeah." He nods solemnly. "I talked with Dr. Bloom about it… she hoped their friendship would end after disembowelment, but I personally think that for those two it's closer to flirting than anything else."

She pulls a face at that. 

"Would you consider Will his victim?" she asks.

Chilton raises a brow, considers the question. "I think he was his victim, at the start. When he framed him. But… something happened, after his time in prison and before that night. Something happened and I believe he's… pulled away from the role of victim. He wants to be as far away from it as possible, given their track record."

She blinks, takes it in. It is weird to think of someone willingly going with the Ripper's wishes — not that Will did, at the start. But now Will followed him… somewhere. Probably Europe. She's not sure where, but she feels like Hannibal's home country is a little too obvious for him to have gone for that option.

"And what role is he pursuing, Dr. Chilton? What's your theory on that?"

He gives her a half-hearted shrug. "Accomplice. Partner in crime."

" _Husband_ ," Miriam says, rather bitterly, referring to the tasteless articles Freddie Lounds has put up in her little website.

"Husband," Chilton agrees. "I don't know, Miriam. But I know that… something will happen when they meet, when they reconnect. I don't know what, but."

"I have a theory or two," she says. She runs her hands over the plain white walls of the courthouse, takes in the texture. She tries to touch things often, take them in, remind herself that she doesn't have only one sensation of dirt at her feet anymore.

"What would that be?"

She turns to him, gives him a smile. "Hannibal will eat him," she says, with all the certainty in the world.

* * *

The _visitor_ necklace Miriam has decided to put on is threatening to choke her as she considers her options.

She wants to visit Hannibal. In fact, this is the reason she is here; she filled the paperwork, flashed her badge (still the one of a student, always a student), all for the chance to see the man who kept her captive for two years be the one in captivity now. But he's not there against his will — he surrendered to the FBI in front of Will Graham's house, in an act Jack described as _something akin to a breakup_. She didn't ask him for clarification — she didn't want to think about how the only person she felt truly understood what she had gone through had gone off the deep end, bonded with his captor and ended up head over heels for the man that links them together.

She can't gloat, when he's here because he wants to be. She can't talk to him — the mere idea makes her feel like there's a lump in her throat, like there's a needle against her arm, as he tells her that he is going to amputate her arm before everything goes black.

Bile rises up her throat, and she swallows it back down as she takes shaky step by shaky step, until she is in front of Hannibal's cell.

It's big and there are no bars, just glass. He's reading in his bed when he notices her. His eyes light up with an interest that makes her beyond uncomfortable.

He puts the book down and stands, goes to stand in front of the glass wall. 

"Hello, Miriam," he says.

She swallows. "Hello, Dr. Lecter," she replies. The memory claws up her throat, hands wrapped around it tight; the sound of a table being flipped echoes over her ears.

"You came to see me." He doesn't phrase it as a question, but she takes it as one.

"Yes." She swallows. "My therapist advised me against it, but I was quite curious about seeing you in captivity, after I was in it because of you."

He smiles in a way that doesn't reach his eyes. "Is it satisfying, to see me imprisoned?"

 _No_ , she thinks. _It's not enough_. But what she says is, "Yes."

If he can tell she's lying, he doesn't say anything about it. "I suppose you want to ask about your time under my care."

"Don't call it being _under your care_ ," she snaps. "But… yes."

"Go ahead, then," he says. He tilts his head, looks at her with those eyes, eats her up, curious. "Ask."

"Why didn't you kill me?" That's the first thing that tumbles out her mouth.

(She wonders if she'd prefer to be dead than to be like this. She's not sure.)

He hums. "Quite a basic question, Miriam. I thought you would have already stripped my psyche to its barest, realized why I didn't kill you."

"I want to hear it from you," she says. She takes the _visitor_ necklace off, puts it in her pocket. It's too much like a chokehold.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he replies. "In fact, I must say, you did everything right. There would be no reason to kill you — you wouldn't have served a purpose then."

"Which would be?" she presses on. "Torture Jack? Frame and shoot Chilton?"

"Yes," he replies. "Both of them. I do not kill and eat people I respect, Miriam. I must say I respect you deeply — I kept you out of necessity. That is all."

"You tried to kill and eat Will Graham," she says. "And I think you respect him, too."

"I did not try to kill him," he replies. "I tried to _eat_ him. I would have had him for dinner… _we_ would have had him for dinner." He smiles, a tad dreamily. "I did not, at any point, try to kill him — we were to share his brain."

"You are aware people don't live without their brains, right?" she snarks.

"Of course," he replies. "I would have taken _just_ what was needed for the dish, Miriam. Nothing more, nothing less."

Bile rises up her throat again. She's a little dizzy with it.

"If you were going to eat Will Graham without killing him, why did you not eat me without killing me?"

"I felt like one limb was more than enough," he replies. "And Will — Will is different from you, miss."

She huffs. "I noticed that much," she says.

"I wanted to eat him out of love. A new type of consumption for me… have always considered it."

"But never actually had someone to do it to, huh? Can't really feel love, your kind of people."

He goes stiff. "Do not make assumptions about my psyche, Miriam," he says.

She almost recoils at that, some feeling of disgust rising up her throat, bile made out of fear; acidic enough to burn her throat off. "Of course not," she says. She wants to ask, but she's already on edge enough by seeing him. She doesn't need to psychoanalyze him on top of that.

"Why Chilton?" she asks next.

He tilts his head. "He is quite annoying," he replies, like it is the most normal thing in the world.

She snorts. "I suppose he is," she says. Considering that Chilton's still in the habit of obsessively checking the tapes of Hannibal's conversations with visitors, she turns to the camera and mouths an apology before turning back to Hannibal. "Was that your only motive?"

He smiles at her; it doesn't reach his eyes. "Do you really think I need any other, Miriam?" he asks.

She's heard enough. She takes the _visitor_ card into her hand, clutching it like a lifeline, and lets out a shaky breath. "Goodbye, Hannibal," she says.

"You're not just like me," he says. "I cannot say the same about Will Graham."

She swallows around the lump in her throat and doesn't offer him a response, leaving through the glass doors.

As she leaves, she cannot shake off the ridiculous feeling that Hannibal left with her.

* * *

"I went to see Hannibal," she tells her therapist.

She sighs.

"Yes, I know you told me not to, but I _had_ to see him. I'm sure you understand."

"Not the first time you haven't followed my advice," she says. She shakes her head a modicum. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. What did you two talk about? Did it bring you any closure?"

"Not as much closure as I had hoped," she replies. She looks at her fingernails in one hand intently. "It… it feels like it's _not enough_ , to see him in prison. Like he needs to have more… to have more happen to him."

She looks at her, a curious yet warm gaze on her eyes. She looks back down as soon as she sees it. It's a little like that memory she's managed to dig out of the chest in her mind, the way he looked at her as she told her she was an agent in training. She swallows thickly.

"Do you crave vengeance?" her therapist asks.

She shakes her head, before reconsidering. "I don't… I don't crave doing it myself. I crave seeing it… seeing it _done_ to him. Something — something terrible happening to him while he's in prison, for Dr. Bloom and Dr. Chilton to… to mistreat him." She coughs into her arm. "It feels terrible. He held me captive for two years but it feels… it feels _wrong_ to want something to happen to him."

"That just means you are a highly moral person, Miriam," her therapist soothes, "even throughout the immense amount of trauma you have experienced." She pauses. "Wishing harm on the person who caused your trauma is a completely normal reaction, all things considered. There is no obligation to forgive him or to let go of these thoughts, but of course, it would be nice if you could let go of them. Peace can come from realizing he will be in prison for the rest of his days, and so—"

"He won't be in prison for the rest of his days," Miriam says. 

"He will be, Miriam," she says, in a calm manner, an attempt at relaxing her. "He will not get back to you."

"No," she says. "I — I don't know how, but I know that he'll find his way out. Maybe Will Graham will help him out, when he gets over himself."

She's being rational; she's not being crazy. She's being rational and aware of what will happen to Hannibal, what Hannibal will _do_.

"Miriam," she says, grabbing her arm, the real one, gently. "Miriam, he will not escape prison. You are safe."

She swallows. She decides to drop the subject, before she gets called delusional. She takes a deep breath, tries to feign something akin to calming down. "Yeah… yeah. I'm — I'm safe." She offers her therapist a shaky smile. "I'm safe. Thank you. Sorry for… for freaking out."

"Don't apologize," she says. "You're quite alright, Miriam." There's a pause that lingers on for far too long. "Just try and follow my advice next time, yes?" She smiles at her, almost playful.

She snorts. "Of course. I'll try to. Again, sorry about that. Knew I shouldn't, but I had to see him."

"Seeking closure is natural. I just wish you had waited a little longer, so we'd have made more strides toward your recovery by when you sought it."

"Well, I already did. And I'm… I'm quite alright. Except for the, you know, worries about him breaking out of prison and keeping me captive again. But apart from that, I'm quite alright."

She hates that she's not honest with her therapist; she hates that she hasn't made a case for as to why Hannibal won't be in prison for the rest of his life, as much as they may wish for it. 

But it's what she's doing, so she has to deal with it.

* * *

Miriam panics when she hears that Hannibal and Will killed the Tooth Fairy and that they left with no trace.

"Miriam," Jack says in the other side of the line. "Miriam, you'll be fine. They have probably left the country. You will be fine."

"I _knew_ ," she sobs out. "Why did you believe Will? Now he's free! He'll — he'll make so many people go through the same thing I went through! Why did you listen to him? Why did you — why did you listen to him?!"

"Miriam —" he starts.

She hangs up, ragged breaths leaving her mouth. Her eyes are wide and her hands are shaking, and all she can think about is how Hannibal is free, with Will in tow. They're free and they are going to hurt her and they are going to kill her or keep her in that godforsaken hole again and she'll get her other arm cut off and and and —

She calls her therapist, her hands shaking so badly she nearly drops her phone three times.

"Miriam?"

"They're coming to get me," she sobs out. "Hannibal's free and they're going to come and they're going to put me back in that hole — I tried to tell you, I tried to tell you, you told me I was being paranoid but I knew I knew I knew—"

"Miriam! Miriam, calm down, hey, you're alright, hey—"

"I knew," she sobs, bile rising up her throat. Her ears ring. The world feels like it's about to burst, to explode in flames. "They'll cut off my arm, they'll cut off my arm, I'll be left with nothing and they'll torture me and there will be that light again and oh God oh God oh God I knew—"

She passes out, hitting her head on the floor.

"Miriam? Miriam! God fucking dammit."

 _Beep_.

When Miriam is awake once again, she's being taken to the hospital, two men carrying her into an ambulance.

"No!" she cries out. "No, Hannibal, no, please, not again not again not again—"

She's screaming her lungs off, hoping to God something, someone comes and saves her, takes her in and doesn't take her back down. There's dirt at her feet, there's dirt and there's light and there's a needle against her arm. They sedate her.

* * *

The weeks she spends at the mental hospital are fuzzy around the edges, memories not quite reaching into her, like they're someone else's memories.

The therapists have a hard time brushing it off as _paranoia_ — sure, she's afraid of persecution, but it is a bit more reasonable than the run of the mill paranoid delusion, when her captor just managed to escape from prison, when her captor could, for all they knew, be planning to take her in.

"Jack," Miriam breathes at visiting hours.

"Miriam. How are you doing?"

She laughs. "Bad," she replies. She picks at a loose thread in her hospital-issued pants. "But at least he can't get me here." She furrows her brows. "At least I think so."

"He won't get you here," he soothes. "Here or anywhere. I am sorry this happened, and I'm sorry that you reacted this way."

"Why'd you listen to him?" she asks, voice hanging on by a thread.

"I had to," he says, grimacing. "I knew there was a chance it'd end up like this. But it was the only way to… to catch the Tooth Fairy."

"Well, you didn't catch him," she says lightly, not meeting his eye. 

"Well, I didn't," he says. A sigh leaves his mouth. "Just… take care of yourself, okay, Miriam? I am sorry about all this. You know that."

"Yeah." She nods. "I know. I'll… I'll try to calm down."

Peace of mind only comes when Ripper-styled murders start to appear all over Europe; peace of mind only appears when she can rest assured that they are in another continent, wreaking havoc and having so many countries' policemen after them. 

She doesn't sleep soundly. She still has nightmares and fears; she still keeps her gun beneath her pillow.

But she sleeps. She can manage to sleep, now that there is at least that illusion of safety looming over her.


End file.
